November 2, 1999

Will Stelle: calm at the center of the salmon storm

By JON SAVELLE
Journal Environmental editor

For a guy who's sitting in the salmon hot seat, Will Stelle seems remarkably calm. He's not tearing his hair, and he doesn't lose sleep at night.

That's odd, considering that Stelle is the regional director of the National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal agency charged with writing salmon recovery rules under the Endangered Species Act.

It's a high-pressure job. Stelle must base momentous decisions -- particularly the question of whether to breach four Snake River dams for salmon passage -- on solid science, while at the same time being mindful that the status quo has powerful friends.

Add to this the widespread perception of him as an outsider -- Stelle hails from New York -- and it looks like a recipe for job frustration.

But Stelle is comfortable in his role. In fact, he seems to revel in the complexities of the salmon issue, seeing it as the ultimate problem-solving challenge.

"It's a wonderful subject," he said in a recent interview. "Spending your days looking at this complicated puzzle, and trying [to figure out] how do we arrange the pieces so as best to save salmon, is a great thing."

Will Stelle, Northwest regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service, holds a picture of a salmon painted by his 8-year-old son, Sam. Photo by Jon Savelle

Stelle is no stranger to resource puzzles. In his last post, as associate director for national resources in the Environmental Policy Office of the White House, Stelle had his hands on a variety of issues. Among them were water resources, wetlands, public land management, forestry, fish and wildlife, and endangered species.

Nor is Stelle a neophyte in politics. A lawyer, he has served as assistant secretary of the Department of the Interior, was chief counsel to Rep. Gerry Studds, D-Mass., for the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, and was general counsel to its Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation and the Environment in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Stelle also has served as staff counsel on the U.S. Senate's Select Committee on Indian Affairs and the Committee on Government Affairs, and has held attorney-advisor positions with the Environmental Protection Agency.

As the Northwest regional administrator for NMFS, Stelle has the force of law to recover salmonid species. Every action having to do with the fish -- from hydropower generation to development guidelines -- has to get an OK from his agency, and, therefore, from him.

But Stelle is aware that there are limits. Some things, like global warming, are bigger than NMFS.

"The fact that people don't control natural systems is not a problem," Stelle said. "The challenge for us as people is to, first of all, improve our understanding of how these systems work. Invest in the science, so that we can recognize and not be fooled by changes in ocean productivity.

"The mistake we've made in the past is not recognizing and investing in the science ... to understand better the role that it plays. That's not by any means an excuse to do nothing."

As NMFS prepares its species recovery regulations, called "4 (d) rules," for West Coast salmonids, it is well to remember that they mark the beginning of a long process. Stelle said it will be interesting to look back, a year from now, and see what has been learned. And five years from now, he said, "the shape of this effort will be very different from what we expect it to be now."

It's also a given that unexpected issues will pop up. One already has, in the form of a colony of Caspian terns that roost on Rice Island in the lower Columbia River.

The terns -- some 12,500 of them -- have caused consternation in salmon circles by feasting on millions of juvenile salmon and steelhead. Their behavior is now something Stelle has to think about.

"There's a lot going on in the Columbia River," he said. "A lot of stuff about managing harvests, and cutting back treaty fishing, and dams, flows, irrigation water, a lot of fairly fundamental stuff. But the topic which I have gotten the most correspondence and inquiries about, given all those substantial issues, is Caspian terns.

"Ask yourself why. It's because some of the other topics are so challenging and so difficult that people shy away from them."